Day 33 - Bear encounter

When we first got to Haines, we got a brochure from the rv park owner suggesting one of the activities available is driving down to the Chilkoot State Park to see the fishing weir. The staff there were counting fish as they returned to the river to spawn and the bear were known to come catch fish from the banks there too.

We drove down the first night to get our bearings and we saw the fish weir but there were no bear in sight when we drove through. There were a few photographers set up on the banks obviously waiting to get pictures of the bear but nothing was happening and we were tired so we didn't hang around long.

The morning after the cruise, I woke Craig up early so that we could hop in the car and go back to see if there were any bear having breakfast there. I made a couple of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for us and off we went. We got to the area and again, we didn't see any bear. We had our sandwiches though and were prepared to wait a while so we parked next to the river. We were watching a couple of men fishing and wondering what they would do if a bear came along when up the road, we saw a bear and 2 cubs come across the street and go to the river. There were other people in the area including a man with bear spray who seemed to know what he was doing and was giving some direction to the people who were also in the area so we got out of the car and walked towards the fish weir to get a better look.

There was a man in the middle of the fish weir counting fish. He was also watching the bear who were quite close to him at this time. He didn't bother with them until the cubs got up on the weir itself and started walking towards him. He used a big stick to bang on the railing and got them to jump back into the water with their mother. The fishers down the stream seemed unaware of what was going on and just kept fishing.

After 10 minutes or so of catching glimpses of the bear on the other side of the weir, they disappeared and the man who knew what was going on warned us that the bear were most likely headed up the river bank out of sight right below where we were standing. He cautioned everyone to stay away from that area. I got a little too nervous at this point and left Craig out in the road and decided I was better off back in the car. I had no sooner gotten back in the car when I heard the man shout to those still on the road to get behind the cars and I looked up to see the mother bear coming out of the brush just in front of our car. She let out a ferocious growl but calmly walked very close to where I was  and went back down to the river to join her cubs. (Later I found out that she was talking to her cubs and she wasn't really angry at all.)

At some point, Craig was able to get back into the car and we realized that we had the best vantage point for watching the mother interact with her cubs as they fished together and separately. They were probably next to our car for about 10 minutes or so. I was worried about the fishermen but saw that one of them was up on the bank with the other spectators and I could see the other one standing on a rock out in the middle of the stream.

Anyhow it was a thrilling 20 minutes or so of watching these wild bear doing what they do every morning when the salmon are running in the river. They caught and ripped apart several salmon while we were watching. The cubs were cavorting around and having a good time it seemed. At some point an official forest service kind of officer showed up on the scene but he didn't add any value to our experience. It was talking to the citizen on the scene carrying the bear mace who gave us the most information about the bear and who also kept the people like Craig who were out in the road safe while the mom bear followed her cubs down the river.

After the bears left, we got on with our day. First we drove out about 10 miles to a fishing cannery with a retail outlet. We bought a few pieces of frozen fish there and struck up a conversation with the sales clerk, a woman who had just moved to Haines from Seattle. She was originally from Hawaii, had lived in Seattle previous to coming to Haines. She worked selling cosmetics at Nordstrom in downtown and lived in Belltown. She said it was just too expensive to live down there and they moved to Haines and bought a house and were happily living the good life. Interesting!

She also told us that they sell the same flash frozen fish through Trader Joe's in Seattle so there was no need to ship salmon and halibut back to enjoy at home which Craig had been considering.

Then we went back to the rv, packed up and hit the road for Whitehorse. Now we really feel like we are on the way home as we start retracing some of our earlier mileage on the Alaska Highway, going south this time. We will spend a day in Whitehorse and then head down the Cassiar Highway to Prince Rupert. This will be a somewhat more direct route but we plan to take a detour to Prince George for a day so it will take us the same amount of time that it took us to get up the Alaska Highway via Dawson Creek.

We are sorry to see our adventure coming to an end but also homesick and a little road weary so we are feeling like it's time to head back to see our family and friends. We will have at least a week or so ahead of us on the road and will take our time winding down the highways.

Life is good and we are blessed!

Craig taking pictures of the bears crossing the road and walking towards the fish weir.

Joe Citizen was a good guy watching out for people like us who know nothing about bears in the wild.

There were about 6 people in the road taking pictures of the bears from a safe distance.

Bear fishing in the weir (look under and to the left of the 3rd upright post, down by the water you will see the bear).

Bear cubs up on the weir.



Bears coming up out of the woods very close to the car.

Cubs sharing a salmon by the car.

Bears fishing.

Sorry for the bad lighting on these pictures. When I get home I can photoshop them and hopefully get some better contrast but this is the best I can do on the road.

Day 30-33 Valdez to Tok to Haines and Juneau

Back up on the Alaska Highway, we proceeded south just about a hundred miles to Haines Junction before taking another detour to go to another oceanside port/fishing village. The drive down was much like we’d experienced going to Homer and Valdez. You go way up in the mountains and then drop way down to sea level. For the rv, that means very slowly (like 20 mph tops) going up the hills and constant downshifting and braking to keep the speed down going down the hills.

Arriving in Haines was different however than the other towns. There isn’t really much of a town at all. It’s quite spread out, the buildings are very old and somewhat rundown. We were surprised to see a cruise ship dock as it wasn’t a very big bay. But the views were spectacular. Our rv park is right on the beachfront again.

We had booked a cruise from Haines to Juneau and it turned out to be a wonderful trip. A catamaran picked us up from Haines. It had come over from Skagway partly full and filled up on people waiting in Haines. Then it was about a 2 hour trip to Juneau. It was somewhat overcast but we saw beautiful mountains, glaciers, waterfalls and even a remote lighthouse out on a rock to warn of very shallow water at the entrance to the bay.

There is no road between Juneau (the big city around here) and Skagway or Haines and there is no main highway out of Juneau in any direction. There is a marine ferry (the same one that also goes down to Bellingham), a high speed ferry, our boat and airplanes. So the boats are a well-used means of transportation for tourists and the locals.

On the way out and back, we saw lots of small fishing boats. It seems that the day before, the fish and wildlife department gave the ok for unlimited salmon fishing. They reported that there were enough salmon that had returned to the spawning grounds and opened fishing to sport and commercial fishers. They were putting out large nets and hopefully making a good haul.

Juneau was fun. The boat dropped us about 10 miles outside of Juneau and a bus picked us up for a tour. Several of the people who came over on the boat with us were flying out of Juneau and the bus dropped them off at the airport. The bus driver was a young man with the driest sense of humor. He cracked me up with his droning monologue about Juneau and his witty but corny one-liners.

The bus dropped us off in downtown Juneau which was bustling with several cruise ships in port. We had a good lunch and enjoyed walking around the port and seeing what there was to be seen. A lot of it was catering to the cruisers (one of the dry comments from our bus driver was “gee, I wish we could get a jewelry shop here in Juneau”. The joke is that there are 3 or 4 on every block selling jade, First Nation arts and crafts, diamonds, gold and a lot of just plain junk. The vendors stand in the doorways and try to lure you in. We weren’t in the market for any jewelry so we passed them all by.

We were tempted to take the tram up the mountain right outside the cruiseship docks but it was so cloudy up there, we didn’t think there would be much of a view. Later in the day, when it cleared up a little and we were tempted to go up, the line was too long so we never did get up there.

When the bus picked us back up after a couple of hours, we were taken to the Mendenhall glacier park. It was great! We are always up for a good glacier and this one didn’t disappoint. It was a ways in the distance but a short walk around the grounds took us to several viewpoints, to the visitor center and to a bear-watching boardwalk over a stream. Lots of salmon to be seen but no bear (wrong time of the day).
Back on the bus, we were again taken to a dock outside Juneau where our boat was waiting. The captain had a nice surprise. He had hinted in the morning that we might be able to see some humpback whales on the way back and he spent the time that we were in Juneau, out scouring around for where the whale were feeding that afternoon. And bless his heart, he took us right to them.
It was quite spectacular and exciting to see these whales (6 or more of them) come up out of the water together and blow. They work as a group to surround a school of fish and it was the most amazing thing. The captain put a microphone underwater and we could hear the leader let out a sharp keen to let the others know that it was time to blow and up they would come out of the water all at the same time and swallow up all the little fish.

They put on this performance multiple times for us until finally the captain said that we needed to head back to Haines. We left them continuing their feeding and headed back. The ride back was as scenic and interesting as the ride over. Glaciers, waterfalls, another view of the lighthouse, and some eagles, dolphins and seals. Life is good!!!

We see evidence of so many wildfires as we drive through Yukon Territory and Alaska but this was especially poignant. This display has some burnt trees and a colorful sign explaining that there used to be a town here that was destroyed in a wildfire.

 

Midday we usually get a little road weary and take any excuse to stop for a while. This day all it took was a "Frosty" sign and we pulled in for ice cream.

 

Craig loves these roadside statues/displays that commemorate the soldiers who worked on the Alaska Hwy during World War II. This one has a lifelike looking statue of a soldier driving a genuine 1940's road grader.

 

Beautiful scenery on the Haines highway.

 

Another relic from the war. This Quonset hut was converted to a church after the war and is still in use in Haines Junction, Alaska.

 

Around every curve on this highway, another beautiful view.

 

Welcome to Haines!



 

Our rv is just the right size for us but in this picture you can see that we are pretty small compared to our neighbors. They were traveling from Arkansas and were waiting to get on the Alaska Marine Ferry to go to Bellingham and start their drive back home from there.

 

Beautiful sunset the first night we were in Haines.

 

Captain George was not only a great skipper of the catamaran, he was also a wealth of information about Haines and the seas we traveled to get to Juneau and back.

 

 

Beautiful waterfalls through the morning mist.

Lighthouse warns boats of very shallow waters in this fjord. It is out on an island way out in the channel and automated these days. It must have been quite some duty back in the days when it was staffed as it's very isolated and in a precarious position for weather and high seas.

Lots of boat traffic - both commercial and personal watercraft. We even passed a cruise ship and a marine ferry on our trip.

Wake behind the boat and the sun trying to peak through the heavy cloud layer.

We saw several glaciers along the way.

An eagle welcomed us into port in Juneau.

Juneau waterfront.

We love taking cruises and I guess I would say right now we are land cruising in our rv.
(By the way, Craig loves his selfie stick. He uses it frequently to get great shots and to take pictures of us!)

The tram we didn't take to the top of the mountain above Juneau. Too cloudy to see much of anything.

Mendenhall Glacier and waterfall. This view from the visitor center observation deck.

Inside the visitor center,
Craig was surprised that the ice was cold. Actually he wasn't expecting real ice as we were looking at mock ups and recreations of things and he was taken by surprise that this was real ice.

A pod of humpback whales emerging from the water.

It was interesting that the birds were very in sync with the whale and seemed to know when they were going to "blow" all the fish up to the surface so they could take advantage of the easy fishing.

This 'blow" was what you would see when they were about to come up out of the water.

This shot we were close enough to see them circling just below the surface. It was quite thrilling! We have seen a lot of orcas in our day but I think this is the first time for us watching humpback whale.

Male sea lions on an isolated beach. They were massive creatures!

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Day 28-29 Matanuska Glacier and Valdez

We got to Matanuska Glacier at 7 pm. It was too late to do the drive and hike out to the glacier so the proprietors generously let us park our rv in their parking lot for the night. In the morning, we drove the 2 miles down the side of the hill on a pretty scary road with warning signs all the way down saying “unsafe road – proceed at your own risk”. And when we got to the gate to pay, we had to sign a lengthy release form – these people don’t want to get sued for sure! Even though the glacier is in a national park, a private party owns the road leading out to the glacier.

We were the first ones to go out on the glacier in the morning and had the place pretty much all to ourselves for most of the time that we were there. First of all, it’s awesomely beautiful, huge, peaceful and quiet except for the sound of the running water. There were orange cones that were set up to show us the safe route to get to the ice. But thank goodness they were there because there was lots of runoff and slippery mud before getting to the ice so we appreciated knowing that someone had scoped out the path before us and left us a clear indication of where it was safe to go.

It was chilly when we started in the morning but we warmed up quite quickly as we walked up the incline to get to the glacier bed. The landscape where we first started was kind of stark – lots of rocks and debris that had been left behind by the glacier as it receded in the past hundred years or so. Lots of silt in the beds and lots of water running off the glacier currently. It looked kind of like a moonscape.

Once we got up to the actual ice, we realized that part of what we were seeing from below as being just earth was actually ice with dirt on top of it. When you looked down on it, you could see the ice in the cracks and begin to feel it crunching under your feet.

We didn’t go far on the actual glacier white ice part because we aren’t experienced ice climbers and there are lots of crevices and soft spots that are dangerous. So we played around for a while and took pictures but didn’t go far at all onto the dangerous areas. We still felt pretty special being there and doing this. Seeing a glacier from the road is awe-inspiring. Walking on one is a real thrill!

After the glacier experience, we hooked up the car and took off in the rv for our next destination – Glenallen and down to Valdez. We hadn’t really planned to go to Valdez because it’s quite a ways south. But we had such a good time in Homer and figured we better invest some time in going to Valdez while we are in the neighborhood. Who knows when we will come back this way again.

The drive to Valdez, like all our drives was beautiful. But we realized that we were going a long ways downhill to get out of the mountains and down to the water and that meant that in a day or two, we would have to come back up that hill. But still, it was gorgeous scenery, mountaintops, glaciers, valleys, waterfalls – everything you could ask for and more.

We went through US customs and Canadian customs several times over these few days as we crisscrossed the border between US, British Columbia and Yukon Territory (controlled by Canada).

Arriving in Valdez, we were captivated by the harbor and the fishing village feel. We loved our little rv park. It was overrun by bunnies. As a matter of a fact, everywhere we went, we saw bunnies in Valdez. They are so cute and you see them in the most unexpected places. It was a fun touch.

We visited the Peter Pan Seafood outlet store and bought some delicious fresh silver salmon steaks and cooked them in garlic butter on the rv stove. It was one of the best meals that we’ve had on this trip. So simple but so good! We also bought some canned smoked salmon to take back with us. Have to laugh because Peter Pan is headquartered out of Seattle but there is no Peter Pan store in Seattle – only in Valdez, Alaska which I guess makes sense as that’s where the fishing and the processing is done.

Unfortunately, it was pouring buckets when we got to Valdez and the next morning it was still raining cats and dogs. We haven't been eating out much, choosing instead to cook in the rv or on the bbq, but it’s Sunday morning so we decided to go out to breakfast. I had a yummy Crab Eggs Benedict – oh so good! After eating, we decided that the long, hard slog up out of Valdez was best gotten out of the way sooner rather than later considering that it looked like the weather down by the water was going to get worse instead of better.

I actually drove the car separately up about 30 miles out of Valdez because it was so much easier to get the rv up the hill without towing the car. We stopped at another glacier – Worthington Glacier – for a short walk and quick look and then hooked up the car and went on our way. It was a very interesting drive as we went through several different weather patterns from the pouring rain down by the ocean to the fog on the mountain tops and nicer weather as we got back up to the Wrangell Wilderness area.

In the late morning, we saw the clean-up in progress from what looked to be a pretty bad accident. A camper rear ended a tour bus. The camper was in bad shape and the bus, which was in the process of turning left was imbedded in a dirt bank next to the road it was turning into. (We found out later that 13 people were seriously injured in the accident with some airlifted out for medical treatment.) Made us count our blessings that our trip has been going so well and say a prayer that we continue safely on back home.

The rest of the drive was beautiful especially once we got up out of the coastal rain. We skirted Wrangell Elias National Wilderness area for most of the afternoon. Stopping at a Visitor Center to stretch our legs and learn a little about the area, we found out that this park/wilderness area is bigger than Switzerland and has higher mountain peaks! It was quite windy there but I enjoyed sitting outside and listening to the “Whispering Birch” trees. They make a lovely whooshing sound when the wind goes through them!

It was great to see the borders of the park for about 4 hours as we finished off the Richardson Hwy and rejoined the Alaska Hwy at Tok, AK. We were here about 3 weeks ago when we finished the Top of the World Highway and were headed to Fairbanks. Gosh – that seems like so long ago. We’ve done and seen so much since then.

We spent the night in a roadside pullout. We haven’t really done that much but Craig was really tired, we were both hungry and there wasn’t a town with an rv park anywhere close enough for us to keep going. It was a nice wide pullout in a somewhat remote area but we agreed it felt like a safe place to stay and it was a quick overnight. About 6 hours of sleep and we were back on the road the next morning.

One thing about the mosquitos that I hope we can safely say now that we are back down in Yukon Territory. They weren’t that bad. We were expecting the worst and pretty good about putting on bug spray before we went outside especially at the beginning of the trip. But other than a few places (Artic Circle, Tok to name a couple of significant ones), we didn’t see a lot of mosquitos, and when we did see no see ‘ums and black flies, they left us alone. Craig got one nasty bite on the back of his hand that swelled up pretty badly. We think it was from a black fly judging from the size of the reaction.

Life is good! We are blessed! All is well! And as much fun as we are having, we are glad to be heading back towards home.

Shout out to Craig! He does all the hard work when we pull into or get ready to leave wherever we are staying for the night. He has to make sure the coach is level, hook up the water, sewer, garbage, cable (in the few places it's available). And then he has to undo everything to unhook everything and stow away all the hoses and cables before we get on the road again. It's a lot of work - he rocks!

 

The light green swatch in the photo, we are told is an avalanche area. The trees have been swept away during the avalanche and it takes 10 years or so for them to regrow.

 

Ponds form in areas where the glacial ice has melted and left depressions. With all the rain they have been having this summer, the ponds are full almost to overflow even up in the mountains.

 

As we drive along, we go through multiple weather conditions. Here are the top of the mountain pass we are driving in the clouds.

 

Times like this I wish I had a naturalist traveling with us. These look like lily pads in the pond but we are up in the mountains.

 

At the entrance to the Matanuska glacier. We spent the night in the parking lot here.

 

This river close to the glacier is already turning fall colors even though it's only early August.

 

Wooden bridge on the road to the glacier entrance.

 

View from the parking lot as we prepare to go out on the glacier.

 

Moonscape - silt and glacial runoff make a mucky mess to get through before getting to the glacier.

 

Looking down into the glacier. Lots of rock debris and water running off.

 

Cracks in the glacier make it dangerous because you don't know if the area is stable or ready to give way.

 

Craig looks like he's up to his waist standing in a crack in the glacier but actually he is standing on a lower piece of ice.

 

Picture of the glacier from the road coming in.

 

Craig bravely walking on the glacier.

 

Another view along the path to the glacier. Silt in the water makes it highly reflective and a beautiful turquoise blue.

 

Another view as we are walking out onto the glacier.

 

Icefield in the distance. The tops of these mountains and all the glaciers in this area are connected to one of the largest icefields in the world.

 

Back on the highway.

 

Horsetail falls just outside of Valdez.

 

Bridal veil falls also just outside of Valdez.

 

Valdez Harbor - right across the street from where we stayed.

 

Bunnies everywhere in Valdez!

 

Lots of brown bunnies!

 

My yummy breakfast - crab benedict!

 

Bluejay eating peanuts.

 

Small waterfall coming down out of the tall snowy mountains above. Then all these trickles get together and form huge lakes and fast moving rivers.

 

Light somehow making it's way through the heavy clouds to highlight the hills next to the road.

 


US/Canadian border. You can stand with one foot in each country! We will be criss crossing US and Canadian borders for the next few days.